Cover Matters is a new monthly feature in which we examine the medium that is first contact between a reader and a book: the cover. This feature will dedicate more separate space to a topic that has always intrigued, irked, and befuddled us. We will be talking about issues such as whitewashing practices, covers in poor taste, misleading or completely inaccurate covers, clichéd covers and, of course, covers that manage to get it right. We plan on having guests (bloggers, authors, cover artists, and publishers if possible) join us for these monthly pieces, with the following question in mind: Do covers matter?

In this month’s issue of Cover Matters we briefly analyze the results of 2010’s AIGA’s “50 Books/50 Covers”, followed by our look at some of the covers that Angry Robot produces as a counterpoint; and a guest post by Lee Harris, the main editor of the imprint.

Do Covers Matter?

AIGA – the professional association for design in the US – seem to think so. Ever since 1941 they have been sponsoring a contest (juried by luminaries of design and members of the publishing/bookselling industries) to select the 50 best designed books published in the previous year. The 2010’s “50 Books/50 Covers” have been selected and will be mounted as a public exhibition at the AIGA National Design Center in New York in December.

And here are some of the selected covers:

At first glance, these covers are awesome – clever, engaging, and to the point. And while the majority of the winning books relate to either literary fiction and non-fiction, there are also a few genre fiction (and genre-type art) titles on the list. For example:

Now, although a lot of the winning books and covers on this list share a certain artistic style (that is, clean and minimalistic), we do think there are quite a few titles – especially in the genre fiction and YA categories – that also deserve some love. Some of the covers and book packages designed by Tor (for example, the entire package for Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker with its heavy pages and sepia ink in addition to the awesome cover), Orbit, Pyr, Flux and others, also deserve mentions.

With that in mind, we give you the other part of this month’s Cover Matters, as we focus on Angry Robot and their approach to cover art.

Angry Robot is an imprint dedicated to the best of adult science fiction, fantasy, and everything in between. Since it first launched in 2009, we’ve been nothing short of impressed with the quality of their work – and that includes their approach to cover art. In an industry guilty of whitewashing and homogenizing, Angry Robot has some fine looking covers on its roster.

Take, for example, the covers for the upcoming Zoo City and the recently released King Maker.

Zinzi has a talent for finding lost things.

To save herself, she’s got to find the hardest thing of all: the truth.

An astonishing second novel from the author of the highly-acclaimed Moxyland.

One, we love the name Zinzi. Two, the book is blurbed by Bill freakin’ Willingham. Finally, both the US/Canada and UK versions are striking covers in their different ways – and we love ‘em.

We’ve already blogged about King Maker…

On the streets of Indianapolis, the ancient Arthurian cycle is replaying in the lives of rival street gangs. Told through the eyes of King, as he gathers like-minded friends and warriors around him to venture into the fastness of Dred, the notorious crime lord, this is a stunning mix of myth and harsh reality. A truly remarkable novel.

But the same applies. Lovely cover, and we’re again thrilled to see PoC as not only the protagonist – but also being accurately represented on the cover.

More than just whitewashing, however, we also love the following Angry Robot covers:

You see what we mean? SO, when we were brainstorming who to invite for this month’s Cover Matters, who better than the editor behind all things Angry Robot – the incorrigible Lee Harris!

Please give it up for Lee, as he talks about covers and why they matter to him.

There’s always a lot of chatter online about the relative merits of cover art, and whenever editors and publishers join in, we keep saying things like “the primary purpose of cover art is to make people pick up your book”. This knowledge is injected into our veins on the day we first walk through the door of the publishing house. Seriously – it’s one of those truisms that we usually don’t even question because it’s been drilled into us so often, or we’ve lived with the knowledge for so long.

Over the last few years my reading circle has narrowed considerably – I’ve found myself reading more and more genre material to the detriment of my ‘literary’ reading (don’t get me started on that one). It’s something I’m aware of and am actively addressing. You see, I’d largely fallen out of love with non-genre titles, and like any long-standing relationship, it’s one that needs work. Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.

When I recently headed into a bookshop to choose a couple of titles for my wife, who is recovering from a minor knee operation, I was shooting in the dark. I knew the types of books she likes, and also some of her favourite authors, but I couldn’t be sure what books she already had, so the front-of-store promotional tables were my best bet. They’d probably have something in the right ballpark, and the books would be new enough that I could be certain she wouldn’t already have read them. When I’m buying for myself I don’t have that problem – I usually have a much better idea of what I’m looking for, and more often than not I’m looking for a specific author or title, following a recommendation or personal preference.

So, how did I choose which books to pick up? I glanced at the covers. Most covers didn’t even get a second glance. Some were good enough for me to scan a little more closely, and a very select few were good enough for me to pick up and turn over to read the back cover copy. In this context, of course, “good enough” means “close enough to what I thought I was looking for”. I wasn’t consciously following this pattern – it didn’t occur to me what I was doing until later on in the day.

There were perhaps 50 titles on the tables I looked at – a good hundred in all. Of those hundred titles, I gave maybe 20 more than a cursory glance, and picked up just 7 or 8 for closer inspection, finally settling on 2 to buy. And if the covers hadn’t been right it doesn’t matter what the back cover blurb said, they wouldn’t have been picked up, and ultimately purchased.

Many of the books on the table were adorned with absolutely beautiful artwork, but the art didn’t convey they type of book I was looking for. They might have been perfect – I’ll never know. This experience served to confirm to me what my colleagues almost always say when talking about covers – it’s not about making the book a beautiful object, it’s about encouraging casual browsers to pick up the title when it’s surrounded by a hundred others.

Don’t get me wrong – I love beautiful books, and often pay for more expensive limited editions when the cheaper paperback is available because of this love, but when commissioning a cover, the really beautiful art is the art that helps sell the book, pays the author and results in repeat work for the artist.

There’s no reason a book shouldn’t be attractive, but if the artwork doesn’t make a large number of readers pick up the title, then the book’s sales will suffer. Aesthetic beauty is a bonus.

So next time you’re browsing and pick up a book by an author you don’t know, ask yourself what made you choose that particular title to inspect? I bet it was the cover, and I bet there are more beautifully-adorned books on the same table that you never even considered picking up.

Thank you, Lee!

For more information about Angry Robot and the covers (and books) they have to offer, check out the official website HERE.

Our good friend, Honorary Smuggler, and Altogether Awesome Individual Karen Mahoney has her debut novel, a young adult fantasy titled The Iron Witch scheduled for release in February 2011 – and it is with the deepest, most profound JOY that we unveil her MOST EXCELLENT COVER! Behold!

The Most Excellent Cover:

Seriously, isn’t it GORGEOUS? The fonts, the color, the girl’s pose. It is all pretty awesome and we cannot wait to read it (is it February yet?).

For now, we have a few extra tidbits for you to feast your eyes upon.

The Blurb:

Freak. That’s what they called seventeen year-old Donna Underwood in high school after a horrific fey attack that killed her father when she was just a child. Her injuries and rehabilitation resulted in magically enhanced strength, thanks to the iron tattoos branding her hands and arms. As a child of the alchemists, she is both blessed and cursed with a magical heritage that permeates her life with duty and sacrifice.

Now, after ten years of wishing for a normal life, she finally has to
accept her role in the centuries-old war against the darkest outcasts
of Faerie: the Dark Elves. Aided by a gorgeous half-fey dropout, Donna must race to save her best friend’s life – even if it means betraying the secret of immortality and confronting the very thing that destroyed her family.

The Exclusive Excerpt:
Please note: excerpt is pre-copyedits and subject to change

They let themselves out of the house and Donna toed an empty beer bottle out of the way as she glanced across the street. And then she gasped as she saw a skinny shadow duck down behind the low wall surrounding the opposite house’s front yard.

Her mouth was suddenly dry and she stopped walking.

“What’s up?” Navin had his hand on the heavy iron gate, ready to step out onto the sidewalk.

“Wait,” she replied, grabbing his arm and wincing as she squeezed too tightly.

He frowned and made a big show of rubbing his arm as she released him. He studied her face for a moment. “Donna, what is it?”

She scanned the street, swallowing past the lump in her throat. Her
heart was pounding. There! There it was again.

A small silhouette moved with uncanny grace, sliding through the
shadows as it climbed over the wall into the next yard.

“Do you see that? Something just went over that wall, I saw it.” She was whispering and knew she must sound like she’d lost the plot, but she couldn’t help it. Donna was certain that whatever she’d just seen slithering through the shadows was something a lot more sinister than a Really Big fox.

“There’s nothing there, Donna.” Navin fixed her with a strange look.
“Are you sure you haven’t been drinking?”

“Shut up, you know I haven’t.”

“Actually, I have no way of knowing that considering how you decided to spend most of the evening wandering around upstairs in a strange house. On the roof.” He raised an eyebrow, something Donna had always wished she could do. The single-eyebrow raise was, sadly, not something she had ever been able to master. Not even with Nav’s expert tuition.

“Oh, just forget it.” She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d
been holding. “Maybe I really am going nuts.”

“Going nuts? I’m sorry to inform you that it’s far too late for that, Underwood.”

Resisting the temptation to demonstrate just how strong she really
was, Donna couldn’t hold back a sigh of relief when their cab pulled
up. At least Navin was teasing her again. The tension between them
from moments before seemed to have lifted. But she still couldn’t help
looking over her shoulder as she climbed into the backseat of the cab,
and she knew she wouldn’t feel happy until they’d gotten out of there.

Donna was almost certain that something had been watching them from across the street, and the crawling sensation in her stomach stayed with her all the way home.

The Iron Witch will be published by Flux in February 2011 and Random House Australia in March 2011.

Cover Matters is a new monthly feature in which we examine the medium that is first contact between a reader and a book: the cover. This feature will dedicate more separate space to a topic that has always intrigued, irked, and befuddled us. We will be talking about issues such as whitewashing practices, covers in poor taste, misleading or completely inaccurate covers, clichéd covers and, of course, covers that manage to get it right. We plan on having guests (bloggers, authors, cover artists, and publishers if possible) join us for these monthly pieces, with the following question in mind: Do covers matter?

This month’s issue of Cover Matters is twofold. Earlier today we published a chat with Fantasy author Celine Kiernan, writer of the Moorehawke Trilogy (published in 10 different countries) where we talked about her different sets of covers.

We are now happy to present the results of our Cover Matters Survey…

Cover Matters: The Survey Results

In our survey, we asked you a bunch of questions to get to the bottom of this puzzling conundrum: Do Covers Matter? And if so, how do they matter? Do they influence or even change your decision to purchase a book? Are they mere marketing tools or artistic representations of the book within? 616 people took the survey and…

Well, folks, here are YOUR answers:

Do covers matter at all to you? That is, do covers play a decisive role in your decision to purchase a book?

On an approximate percentage scale, how large a role do covers play in your decision to purchase a book?

A Dominant Role: (20) 3%
A Major Role: (294) 48%
A Minor Role: (250) 41%
An Insignificant Role: (33) 5%
Other: (15) 2%

Let’s talk hypotheticals: You’re in the bookstore, browsing leisurely amongst the stacks. A cover catches your eye – it’s a book you’ve not heard anything about. Do you buy this book?

Yes – (38) 6%
No – (135) 22%
It depends – (436) 72%

Hypothetical #2: A trade/hardcover book that you’ve been interested in reading has just been released…but the cover for this book is especially terrible. Do you still cough up the dough and buy the book, or do you wait for the mass market paperback release?

Yes (I want to read the book now, and a really bad cover isn’t going to deter me) – (119) 20%
Yes (I want to read the book now, and I will buy it DESPITE my distaste for the cover) - (250) 41%
No (If I’m paying for a hardcover or trade edition, I want a decent cover) – (241) 40%

Hypothetical #3: Take situation #2 above, but say that the book is a mass market paperback with a truly hideous cover. Do you buy the book?

Yes (I want to read the book, and the awful cover isn’t enough to deter me) – (184) 30%
Yes (I want to read the book now, and I will buy it DESPITE my distaste for the cover) – (322) 53%
No (I’ll borrow it from the library or a friend or something) – (104) 17%

Hypothetical #4: How much do you associate a cover with the actual content of a novel? That is: If you read a book and loved it, and the next time that you are in a bookstore you see a similar looking cover, would it make you purchase that book in the hopes that you will have a similarly pleasant reading experience?

Yes (225) 37%
No (383) 63%

On Whitewashing: You’ve seen the fallout online surrounding the book covers for LIAR and MAGIC UNDER GLASS. If you know a book’s cover has been whitewashed, will you purchase the book?

Yes (328) 55%
No (161) 27%
Other (110) 18%

Do cover “cliches” bother you? (i.e. Hooded figures wielding swords on fantasy novels; bare-chested half-faced dudes on romance covers; chicks in stilettos, tight pants, and tattoos on UF covers)

Yes (353) 58%
No (258) 42%

In general, what do you think of the state of covers in genre fiction (SF/F/H, UF/PNR, Romance) today?

They’re great! I love the majority of covers on the market! - (52) 9%
They’re fine/average. There are great covers and not so great covers in pretty much equal measure. – (440) 72%
They’re terrible! The majority of covers on the market are drab/uninspired/awful. - (119) 19%

Can (or has) a cover ever be the SOLE driving factor in your decision to purchase a book?

Yes (245) 40%
No (365) 60%

In your opinion, what role do covers play for a book?

Covers are a Marketing Tool (that’s their main role, and that’s the only function that I really care a cover serves) - (157) 26%
Covers are the artistic representation of the book (they should be accurately representative of a book’s genre, tone, and/or characters) – (373) 62%
Other (75) 12%

In your opinion, are “cliched” genre fiction covers useful? That is, do you believe that they signify or inspire a sense of reader familiarity that encourages readers to buy the book?

Yes (399) 66%
No (209) 34%

Let’s assume that books with “cliched” covers dominate genre fiction sales. Why do you think this is?

They inspire a sense of familiarity – (308) 51%
They are all that is on the market right now - (252) 42%
Other (46) 8%

SURVEY TAKER PROFILES:

Which of the following genres do you read the most?

Fantasy (469) 77%
Romance (289) 47%
Young Adult (399) 65%
Science Fiction (245) 40%
Horror (81) 13%
Comics/Graphic Novels (139) 23%
Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance (399) 65%
Literary Fiction (197) 32%
Mystery/Thriller (178) 29%
Other (38) 6%

You live:

In the United States (358) 62%
In the United Kingdom (71) 12%
Other (147) 26%

Where do you get the books you read?

In a bookstore (461) 76%
Online (454) 75%
Library (295) 48%
Review Copies (116) 19%
Other (54) 9%

You are:

A Reader (597) 98%
A Blogger (233) 38%
An Author (83) 14%
A “Publishing Professional” (25) 4%
A Bookseller (21) 3%
An Artist (39) 6%

So there you have it. Phew.

Observations:

We’ll keep it short, as this post is long enough as it is! But we did want to highlight a few trends.

It’s interesting to us that the majority of responders identified themselves as readers – not necessarily bloggers, authors, or professional industry folks. The picture this survey paints, then, is even more interesting as (ostensibly), the results are from the target audience. Our results should be a little more accurate and indicative of at least the online reading community (and not JUST the blogging community). On that note, we also found it very interesting that responders say they buy books online and in stores in roughly equal measure. Also, it’s worth mentioning that most of our responses originated from US residents – and we wonder if UK or other international readers have different spending, reading, and cover association habits.

That said, here are some of our general highlights, observations, and conclusions:

Covers clearly DO matter (a whopping 80% of folks surveyed agreed)

Covers CAN and DO play a role in influencing survey responders’ buying habits, although a large majority of survey takers need a little more to go on than a cover when buying books (which is perhaps not indicative of the “casual reader”).

PRICE seems to be a central determining factor regarding whether or not a reader will purchase a book – especially one with a bad cover. More people won’t pay HC prices for a book with a terrible cover – but they WILL for a MMPB (and they will buy the book despite their distaste for the cover). Imagine then, if a book had a great – or even decent – cover…

“Cover ‘cliches’ sell…just not necessarily to me” – According to the results of this survey, folks literally aren’t buying the whole “similar covers sells!” That is, they personally do not equate a book with a similar cover to a book they have previously read and enjoyed. However, survey responses also indicate that these same readers believe that *others* DO make this association with covers – as noted by the consensus response that readers find cover “cliches” do inspire a sense of familiarity and thus sell.

On Whitewashing – it appears that whitewashed covers do even more damage to a book’s sales, even if it isn’t the author’s fault. A majority of survey takers show they will not buy the book at all – and not because they are bigots and not into books with PoC characters, but because they do not want to show any form of sales support to the publishing house that put out the whitewashed cover.

Cover “cliches” are split down the middle in terms of reader reactions – although 10% more of survey takers think these “cliches” are annoying and bothersome.

And finally, the most interesting result of all (in our opinion) is how READERS perceive of covers. Unlike the cut and dry, “it’s a commercial vehicle for a book, dammit!” outlook, readers that responded to this survey rather see covers as the artistic embodiment of a book and thus should be accurately representative of a book’s genre, tone, and/or characters. This answer took the clear majority at 62%.

Some comments from survey takers:

(These are all anonymous, unless a survey taker provided their information)

One trend we noticed in the comments was that our responses – and again, from predominantly genre-fiction readers – agreed that they buy books DESPITE covers. Good covers are awesome and will help a reader make a decision to buy a book for which they are uncertain, or buying on impulse. On the flip side of that, a bad cover for a book they are excited to read won’t persuade them NOT to buy it – they’ll still buy it, eventually, regardless.

“I love a good cover, a good cover will get me to pick a book up. But a bad cover has never ever kept me from buying a book that I’ve heard good things about. A bad cover will keep me from looking at a book I’ve never heard of, usually. There are a few exceptions, I wish I could recall titles for you, but there have been some covers so bad I just had to read the blurb to see if it was as bad as the cover.”

“If it’s a book that I really want to read, then the cover doesn’t matter. However, where cover matters most for me is for books that I buy on impulse. The blurb is the deciding factor, but the cover is usually the first thing that catches my eye at a bookstore. If I see a cliched cover, all I think is “Oh, it’s another one of THOSE.” and it doesn’t inspire me to pick up the book and read the blurb. The original PB cover of Brandon Sanderson’s “The Final Empire” is what got me to read the blurb and buy it, despite the fact that I was sick to death of epic fantasy at the time. (I’ve since bought all of the Mistborn books in HC, because I hate the current PB covers and the HC ones are so pretty :P)”

“Book covers may not play the biggest role in deciding whether to buy a book, but an attractive cover will make me pick it out from the shelf rather than a visually unattractive book.

It’s not uncommon for me to buy better illustrated hardcover copies of books I already own in paperback version (if I like the books itself, of course).

I’m probably biased due to my artistic/design career, and I don’t expect most people to place the same importance on covers.”

We thought this comment was very interesting – does a shoddy cover mean that a publisher simply doesn’t care as much about that title? It certainly is a valid observation!

“The cover tells me how highly the publisher thought of the book and how much effort they went to to make the book stand out to me, the buyer. If it’s a truly awful cover, I won’t want to buy it unless I’ve actually heard great things about that book. I know that the artistic value of the cover isn’t really connected to the value of the novel, but I will be persuaded to buy a book I’ve never heard of by how much personality the cover has.”

On the other side of the spectrum, there are these keen responses that put less of a premium on covers.

“I pretty much concentrate on the author when making my decision to buy a book. I will always buy books from established authors I like. The second thing I look for is the blurb or description of the novel. I only really consider the cover of the book last (and that’s not a huge consideration). What’s important to me is the story in the book, not the cover. Having said that, books covers do catch my attention, but my decision to buy is always based on the blurb, followed by a brief scan of the first 2 pages of the book. If I’m not hooked in the first two pages, then the book goes back onto the shelf. I can safely say I’ve never bought a books based solely on its cover.”

“I love discussing covers, especially the whitewashing topic a few months ago – covers do matter. However, the survey perplexed me. Do most people really put SO much weight on covers? Covers matter, but ultimately, it’s the story being sold, not the packaging. I can’t imagine ever buying a book at whim *just* because I liked the cover. I will still stand in the store and read 30-50p before purchasing.”

“Whilst this is a fascinating discussion and I do fully support cover discussion (especially when it can do such good things, e.g. stop whitewashing), I can’t help but feel much of it is all fairly academic. I mean, like everything in publishing covers are entirely subjective and what’s one person’s meat is another person’s poison – personally I loathe covers with half-naked guys grabbing women with their clothes falling off. No matter how great the book I think it makes it look cheesy and racy and honestly I’m embarrassed to be seen reading it. But then I have several friends who like those covers because they think they’re pretty, and show it’s going to be a romance novel of the kind they probably enjoy. So if there’s a romance novel with a cliched cover, she’d pick it up and I wouldn’t. If it’s got a new and original cover, I’d go for it and she wouldn’t – either way it’s one sale to the publishers so it’s up to them which way they want to swing it. They can’t please everyone.

Then again, I think if romance books all stopped using cliched covers and went for original exciting things it could do great things for the genre – it might draw in a new audience and encourage the people (like me!) who are currently too embarrassed to buy the cringe-worthy Clinch Of Almight Passion covers.”

On that note, what do survey takers have to say about “cliches”?

“A cover is a great way to get my attention. This is why the “cliched” genre fiction covers work for me. I tells me, “Hey, this is what type of book I am.” Once it has gotten my attention I will read the synopsis and maybe do some more research before buying.

However, if I hear about a great book, or already like the author, a bad cover or cliched cover won’t deter me. It just might not attract my attention in a book store. “

“If I am just browsing in a bookstore, without my trusty little notebook that lists the books my favorite bloggers are forcing me to buy, my attention has to be snagged in some way and that is usually by cover art. Personally, it is not the clinch, the glowing sword, or the mantitty that grabs me but maybe something just as mundane or “cliched” if you will….a beautiful dress worn by a heroine, my favorite color (purple!) utilized heavily, an unusual font. A cover, like any kind of artwork, is very subjective. A cover will get me to at least pick a book up and read the blurb and a paragraph or two. At that point it becomes the author’s job to keep me interested.

It seems to me that cliche is often used as a derogatory term. I don’t always see it that way. A cliche becomes so because of its popularity or worth as a truth: beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you can’t always judge a book by its cover, and finally, to each his own.”
~ Amy

“To expand on the last survey question… “Let’s assume that books with “cliched” covers dominate genre fiction sales. Why do you think this is?”

While I am sure these covers do inspire a sense of familiarity, it is hard not to when it seems every other book has a similar cover. I have a hard time believing that just those of us around the online communities for these genres, the vocal minority, are taking issue with cover art these days. It just seems a massive disconnect that I cannot wrap my head around. Basically the argument is akin to saying that we, this tiny island of the informed that would like to see more varied and artistic covers, are surrounded by an ocean of the uninformed, readers who want nothing more than to be served up more helpings of the mediocre.”

“I find classic romance book covers are so terribly tragic that I can’t even read most of them in the comfort of my own home. However, some of those covers are a reflection of the book titles the authors have given them.

Strangely enough, I get a funny sense of “homecoming” when I see urban fantasy covers. More often than not, they reflect what I like about the content. For example, covers with badass women with tattoos, usually have a strong female lead which I feels can inspire me to be a bit stronger, even with my one tiny tattoo
Although this note is far from cohesive, the general idea is that I don’t care really what the cover is like (if it’s an author I know of have heard good things of), as long as it isn’t embarrassing to read in public.

I have also been swayed to buy books with great covers however, only if the blurb also interests me also.

Aren’t you glad you read this incomprehensible rant? Have a good night ladies!”

“I regularly browse the fantasy section of bookstores only to walk away empty handed, turned off by the awful covers. Some publishing companies (Orbit and Small Beer, notably) are breaking out of that. Last time I was in the bookstore I picked up three or four books I was interested in, then decided to buy one. When I looked at the info I realized that it was published by Orbit, and when I checked the other books that I’d considered I realized that they were all Orbit. The covers clearly showed that the books were more than your average hero-wizard-dragon fantasy novel, and thus caught my eye. If the cover doesn’t bother to rise above the genre baseline, then it’s unlikely that the novel will. That’s my theory, at least.”

We also received a few interesting comments on the US/UK divide…

“As US and UK editions often have different covers, now that I have more disposible income, I will purchase the book with the cover I like most.

I will not read certain books at work or around other people, solely because of the covers. (eg, Nalini Singh’s books with the naked torsos, romance clinch covers)

If I am uncertain about buying a book, an awesome cover (or otherwise) can sway me, but only if I am on the edge.
madscientistnz (www.itemsofinterest.net)”

“Personally speaking (and to make a sweeping generalisation) I think the difference between cover art for work published in the US and that publishing in the UK is massive. Call it cultural differences if you like, but to compare the cover arts from a large company such as Baen Books with those of some smaller UK companies – Solaris and Abaddon books for example – there is such a huge divide in terms of artist ability.

Don’t ask me why this is (or if it is even true – this is just my understanding and perception) but it definitely puts me off buying imports – I would much rather wait for a UK edition with a better cover.”

“I live in the UK and will sometimes order US versions of books because I prefer the cover or have previously bought the first books in a series when there has been no UK version and I am a bit of a completist.

I must admit that I am quite often drawn to books that have covers that are unusual, for instance Soulless by Gail Carriger, Boneshaker by Cherie Priest and quite often this means that I will try a book that based on the blurb I wouldn’t necessarily buy. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t.

The problem when covers all start to look the same is that I find I am put off because I feel that if the cover is too similar then the story may be fairly similar as well.

A good cover should spark interset in a book and be representative of the story within and as a bookseller I am aware that when I choose books to do face outs and reviews I have tendency to choose ones that have interesting and unusual covers as they are more likely to catch peoples attention. Yes we shouldn’t judge a book by a cover but I think that all of us have a bit of magpie in us when it comes to shiny pretty things.”
~ Angelshimmery

And then, we have some excellent responses from Librarian survey takers! (And apologies to the librarians that responded to the survey – we had a huge brainfart and didn’t put in a librarian option in the “You Are…” profiling question. D’oh! But THANK YOU for commenting and sharing with us your perspectives and experiences.)

“As a Librarian, I purchase books for our collection based on reviews, and the cover doesn’t have any bearing on the purchase. However, it’s VERY disappointing when a great-sounding book has a boring (or just plain ugly) cover, especially when it’s a YA book.

Personally speaking, I’m tired of books with headless women (or nearly headless), leather pants, and tattoos. Half the time, the main character doesn’t even have any tattoos!!”

“I’m a School Librarian and have a lot of avid teenaged readers who are very swayed by the cover – my heart breaks when a book I love has an unappealing cover – they will not read it no matter how much I try to push it! To them the initial appearance is even more important than the blurb.”

We also found this interesting – as genre fiction fans, we are very familiar with the problems that epically long series’ can pose for readers. Do you stick with the same cover art for the entire series? What if a better looking edition comes out?

“Its not that i wont buy a book with a cover i dont like because it truly is about the back blurb and weather or not i like the writing style. The cover and title are just what gets my attenion if i’ve never heard of the author before. Now when a cover DOES determine weather or not i buy it is when its part of a series. When i work at owning a whole series i like when the cover formats are the same. For example, say the hardback, paperback, and mass market paperback all have different cover styles and I’ve already bought one style without knowing this. Then when i go to buy the rest of the series i make sure i get all the same style. Even if there is another style i like better. I like when they match as a set on my bookself.”

Of course, then there’s the Embarrassment Factor (the old “hiding the cover whilst reading in public” syndrome)…

“My taste in covers varies greatly. I’m a sucker for good typography, spaceships, and any cover that looks like it was painted by Frank Frazetta or Keith Parkinson. I know they’re out of style now but I still love them. I tend to really dislike covers with heavily-photoshopped photographs on them. The majority of them look very cheesy and in my opinion make the book look like a “beach read”, not a potential classic.

All I ask for in a cover is that if a stranger pulled the book of the shelf I wouldn’t be embarrassed by it.”

“Avoided reading Tinker by Wen Spencer for ages because of the cover. I assumed I wouldn’t like the book when in fact I adored it and have reread Tinker about 8 times at this stage. The cover isn’t so important when I know the author, it doesn’t really even register. But if I’m browsing in the book shop for new authors I find that the cover does play a role in my decision to purchase. Not always a conscious decision but it does effect how I feel about the book. Ciara”

(This comment is pretty near and dear to Thea’s heart as she LOVES Jacqueline Carey too, but similarly didn’t read the series forEVER because of the terrible, embarrassing covers)

“I avoided reading Jacqueline Carey’s “Kushiel’s Dart” series for at least two year because I couldn’t believe that anything good was behind the cliched romance-novel cover illustration. Kudos to whomever wrote the blurbs for that book — that’s what kept drawing me back to it and finally persuaded me to give the series a try. Carey is now one of my favorite authors and I have numerous signed, hardback releases.

Now I’m a little less judgmental with covers, but I still use them as a general rule of thumb: cliched covers are for cliched books. At least use the cliched symbols in a new manner!

Busty women in long dresses and muscular men with swords are especially cliche — just by mentioning them, I bet the genres that sprang to mind were Romance and Fantasy, eh?”

We also heard back from some authors and other publishing/bookselling professionals:

“As an author who understands the lack of control authors have over the final cover, I will never NOT buy a book because of the cover. Conversely, I can love a cover but its what is inside that counts, so if I love the cover and the blurb doesn’t interest me, I won’t buy the book. And lastly, books without back cover blurbs based solely on an author’s name recognition frustrate me. Content still matters!”

“As a graphic designer I feel frustrated that I am quite frequently vetoed by the marketing department (or equivalent, since I’ve not worked for a publisher. Yet!). It’s a tenuous compromise to satisfy my own formalistic interpretation of the content, as well as fulfil the client’s preferences, so in that sense I can understand the reversion to cover clichés; however, I hope though that publishers and marketing departments can be convinced to take the risk in accepting more unique and representative covers of novels. Perhaps it’s simply a matter of hiring the appropriate artist, illustrator or designer who can directly meet the needs of a cover brief (and accurately and innovatively represent the novel as it should be) without the lazy fallback of clichés. Clichés aren’t necessarily bad; I think it would simply be a matter of being selective in how you use them and in what context, so that we’re not all rolling our eyes at seeing the same thing over and over again. It’s a gamble, of course, but the result can simply be magic.

Anyway, thanks for the comprehensive feature on covers! It’s been really insightful.

– Jen (http://twitter.com/dumblydore)”

“As a bookseller, there’s no question about whether or not customers judge books by their covers (and their type and their paper (U.S. much nicer than U.K./Irish paper!)) but what’s almost more important is the spine as that’s the bit that will be seen on the shelf for the majority of the book’s life.
Louisa (Raven Books)”

We also received a ton of great responses from eReaders out there – thank you for sharing with us (another d’oh! moment – we should have had a question about the format of books survey takers read). The consensus seems to be in this case that covers matter a lot less for those purchasing ebooks – which is kind of an interesting (and potentially troublesome!) phenomenon in itself.

“About 10 months ago I switched to reading primarily on an e-reader. Since then, covers have had a much smaller role in the books I read. Before I almost didn’t want to be seen with most UF/PNR or Romance books because of the dreadful covers. Now that I’m reading on an e-reader I’ve read many great books that I would have never picked up in a bookstore because of the terrible cover.”

“About ebooks- can I say I’m totally sad that so few ebooks come with an image of the cover? Because I feel (to steal your words) that covers are an ‘artistic representation’ of the book, I’m always bummed when I don’t get them with the book. I bought the book! Shouldn’t I get a copy of the cover? It makes me feel that covers only serve a marketing purpose to the publishers, and once they have my sale, they can just rip off the cover. That’s a huge difference with how I, the reader, feel. Yet another big miscommunication between the industry and their audience, I guess.”

We also received a few intriguing comments concerning whitewashing. On the impassioned end:

“Also, I think if one is truly against whitewashing, they should put their money where their mouth is. I don’t advocate not buying the author’s book, but rather, make that decision to also purchase a book with a person of color on the cover. Send the message that covers with people of color sell. Let’s make it so youth such as Ari can go into a bookstore and see an aisle truly filled with diversity, and not just relegated to the African American section.”

“While I think that whitewashing is a huge problem and reflects some very disturbing marketing practices, I do not necessarily think it should result in a boycott of the book, the author or even the publisher. Rather, I think that what you all are doing is the best route. Point out the infraction, discuss it, and push the publisher in a public venue to change the cover because whitewashing is unacceptable. New authors generally have little to no say in covers nor do established authors. As such the whitewashing is not so much a reflection of the author as the publishing house. We need to continually point out that we, the readers and consumers, are offended by such covers and object to this way of thinking and marketing. Not buying the books is not enough because that can be construed as being for different reasons. We need to publically state why we aren’t going to buy the book, why we are unhappy with the cover because without that public statement the message isn’t going to get across to the publishing houses that this is an unacceptable practice and that we as consumers are aware of it and it affects our decision to purchase books.”

“Publishers are guilty of hot-washing as often as they are whitewashing; even if the character as written is plain, or even ugly, they’re always hot on the cover, esp. female characters. The closest they ever get to unattractive cover models is Ugly Betty ugly, not real ugly.”

Other perspectives on whitewashing…

“On whitewashing–I think it’s more a matter of carelessness than deliberate malice. Do the artists even read the book in question? If not, and someone gives them a brief summary of the plot, are they going to mention the race of the character? (“It’s about this girl…” or “It’s about this black girl….”?)”

“Frankly, most whitewashed covers would just deter me, just not for the “right” reasons. I don’t read books because I want to make a social statement; I read books to be entertained and I want to identify with the heroine, at least to an extend. And since I’m not exactly thin and my hair is neither blonde nor red, I won’t read certain books because the girl on the cover is the antithesis to how I look (hello there Paranormal Romance covers and your anorexic blonde chicks with tattoos, I won’t buy you), and, what can I say – I’m superficial. So, yeah, I would have preferred the second version of the cover of “Magic Under Glass” but not because the model is black but because she looks more interesting and easier to identify with (for me).”

And then, there’s this comment:

“Covers shouldn’t matter. The same people who are whining that publishers are racists for not putting POC on covers are racists themselves. A book blogger on her letter to Bloomsbury said that she reads many books regardless of the main character’s ethnicity, yet on her review policy she states that she’ll on read books where the MC is not Caucasian. Can you say hypocrite?

Plus, like I wrote earlier, there are far more important things to worry about. There’s world hunger, rape used as torture in Africa, homelessness, child abuse in foster homes, poverty, global warming, etc.”

Well, we can’t end our post like THAT. Here’s a final comment (concerning covers in general) that we truly enjoyed:

“When I’m walking through the Barn (B&N), hunting for a new book because I have stumbled upon 20 bucks, I pick up the covers that check my eye. I take everything into account, the coloring, the cropping, the typeface and placement of the title. These things makes me pick up the book and flip it over to read the blurb. If the blurb is good, I buy or settle in to peak at the first chapter. On more than one occasion I have not bought a highly recommended book because of its cover. I’ll wait for the paperback or hunt for a different printing online.

Books are beautiful. The craft of the story, how words create worlds, even the layout of the text. Why should a gorgeous story be given such a disadvantage by being published with a horrendous cover? Poorly done covers make me think the publishing house didn’t care enough about the story to put for any effort on having an artist construct a fitting advert. It’s all propaganda, baby. SELL me the book. If it looks like it was slapped together in MS Paint, it will not be displayed on my bookshelves.

Just my opinion as an avid reader,
Shannon”

There were so many wonderful, informative comments to sort through, and we wish we could quote you all (well, except for those who explicitly asked not to be quoted!). Our thanks to everyone who took the time to fill our survey, we think the turnout was pretty awesome and we are floored by your support. THANK YOU!

Cover Matters is a new monthly feature in which we examine the medium that is first contact between a reader and a book: the cover. This feature will dedicate more separate space to a topic that has always intrigued, irked, and befuddled us. We will be talking about issues such as whitewashing practices, covers in poor taste, misleading or completely inaccurate covers, clichéd covers and, of course, covers that manage to get it right. We plan on having guests (bloggers, authors, cover artists, and publishers if possible) join us for these monthly pieces, with the following question in mind: Do covers matter?

This month’s issue of Cover Matters is twofold. First, we chat with Fantasy author Celine Kiernan, writer of the Moorehawke Trilogy (published in 10 different countries) about her different sets of covers. The interview is followed by the results of our Cover Matters’ survey which will be published in a different post later today.

Celine Kiernan is the author of The Moorehawke Trilogy, The Poison Throne, The Crowded Shadows and The Rebel Prince. The first and second books have been out for over a year in Ireland, Australia (and other countries) and are being published by Orbit in the US and UK this month. Set in alternate 15th Century Europe, the trilogy follows protagonist-cum-narrator Wynter Moorehawke as she and her dying father return home after a 5 year absence up North, eager to join up with her two childhood friends, the two brothers Razi and Allberon, only to find a kingdom in the throes of religious and political turmoil. We reviewed the first book, The Poison Throne over at Tor.com and you can read it here.

Given the assortment of covers and how different they are from each other, we thought it would be interesting to chat with the author about her extensive, interesting experience with covers, artists and publishers:

The Book Smugglers: You’ve had your Moorehawke trilogy published (or about to be published) in 10 different countries and with six different sets of covers – are you pleased with the results? Do you think all of your covers are representative of the characters, story, and/or overall tone for the series?

Celine: I think of all my covers, the ones that hit the mark in all three respects (story, tone and characters) are the Australian ones. They are quite simply stunning. Australian fans often take time to praise the cover art to me, this is, I suspect, very rare. (more about the Aussies later).

I have a real fondness for my very first Poison Throne cover ( the 2008 Irish edition) It was a rich and beautiful affair, possibly the one that most accurately reflects the feel of the book. It shows a raven with a gold crown in it’s mouth, and I especially like the fact that this cover opens out into the same map of the Europes and Moroccos that Razi, Wyn and Alberon pore over in The Rebel Prince – this was a lovely touch for me. But it must be said that even though this cover is one of my absolute favorites it was not, in itself, that popular with readers. This print run of Poison Throne sold out very quickly, and when the publishers went to reprint, they chose to use the German Poison Throne covers which showed a cat’s eye. This cat cover was one which I was never very sure of ( I was always afraid that folks would expect cats to play a far greater role than they do) but feedback from Irish booksellers showed a HUGE customer response to them.

The Poison Throne: 1st and 2nd editions by O’Brien Press (Ireland)

The first print run of Poison Throne sold out through word of mouth apparently ( in other words, folks came in specifically looking for it) but the cat cover walked off the shelves on it’s own merits, simply because folks were drawn to pick it up. Go figure, huh? Apparently cats sell. Now that’s something I never would have guessed at or known. Had I been asked my opinion on it, I probably would have said ‘no’ to the cat because I would have been worried about misrepresenting the story. This would have been dumb dumb dumb because, obviously, I know bubkas about marketing.

Speaking of the German covers, I’m not sure what to make of the owl that features on the German Crowded Shadows (Poison Throne is called Shadow Paths in Germany. Crowded Shadows is called Ghost Paths) It’s an awesome bit of cover art and very powerful, but I have no idea what it is meant to represent; perhaps the forest that that story is set in?

Even more disconcerting, though, is what readers will make of the facial tattoos, multiple piercings and samurai sword wielding Wynter that will apparently grace the German YA cover. I mean, it’s a great design, the girl depicted is one tough-looking broad (you gotta admire that in a gal) and certainly the cover is eye catching, but … um… yeah.

Words fail me there. I can only hope that the readers won’t be too pissed off when they buy a book expecting sword wielding kick-arsery and find themselves reading a bit of a slow-burn political character-study instead.

You ask me specifically about the Orbit covers a few questions down so I’ll wait until then to tell you my opinion of them.

The Book Smugglers: How would you describe the experience of creating these covers? Were you part of the process at all? How did one cover differ from the other? Did you have contact with any of the artists?

Celine: You can see from the answer below that I was very closely consulted on the Aus covers – but, saying that, I was only consulted about elements of the pictures that applied to me. Elise was determined to get the details right – but it was the Aus publishers who decided what those details would be, what the cover style would be, and how they would approach the design etc. I wasn’t involved in that at all. I had a good bit of contact with my Irish publishers ( they asked me to draw the map) and I had quite a bit of contact with Orbit as their cover designs progressed. But overall I had very little input per se (and there was no contact at all with any of my other publishers. )

As I said when discussing the cat covers, I’m not too sure that it’s important, or even ideal, for the author to be involved in the design of their books. Authors are all about the story – book covers are all about the market. It’s the rare writer who is also an excellent self promoter and salesman ( Mr Dickens, you may take a bow) and for us to put our all-too-emotionally-involved oars into the often very complex process of marketing our books would probably be a bit of a nightmare for the sales and design teams.

The Book Smugglers: we have to say, out of the four our favorite is by far, the Australian covers. Can you tell us a bit more about the artist and the overall concept for the covers?

Celine: I had a great relationship with the Aus artist ( Elise Hurst) She spent a lot of time talking to me about what kind of building the palace was, what renaissance horses would look like, what kind of tack they might have, what the weapons might look like, what clothes the characters would wear etc. She also took the time to read all three books before starting the triptych and was very careful to match the tone of each cover to that of the story contained within; no easy task when designing the three covers as one long piece of artwork ( all three AUS books cleverly join together to make one picture, the trees that frame each cover being the linking point)

It’s not immediately obvious but there are many subtle details on the AUS covers which reflect aspects of the story ( my favorite of these being the ravens that flow from cover to cover; the way Wynter is still wear Christopher’s jacket on cover three, and most especially, the way she is carrying Razi’s falchion sword: this is such a subtle and lovely symbol of a moment in book three where Wyn takes up Razi’s burden when he can go no further.) Another huge reason for my love of these covers is the inclusion of Razi – it can’t have been easy to come up with a design that included all three major characters, so many story elements, and such a strong sense of drama without cluttering the page. Lovely.

If you have the time you should take a visit to Elise Hursts blog and check out the process she used to draw the triptych – it’s fascinating and shows just how much thought and work went into the production of this magnificent piece of art.

The Book Smugglers: Authors are so often caught in the middle of the Cover Wars between publishing decisions, marketing campaigns and sometimes the artists themselves. How do you view this situation – it can’t be comfortable?

Celine: Yeah, authors can end up caught in the cover wars, but really I’m not sure we have any place in them. After you have written your book and gone through the editing process, a whole new phase happens in the production process which really has very little to do with what’s between the covers. Its all about seduction, all about how to get folks to walk over and take your particular book from a crowded shelf. Next time you walk into a book shop, stop for a minute and just look at all those bloody books! Imagine an author you’ve never heard of, imagine their book which you’ve never heard of either, and now picture it lost amongst all those hundreds and hundreds of covers presenting themselves to you. At that moment a cover is all the author has. The story at this stage doesn’t matter a spit, because you, the purchaser, has never heard of it. At this stage in that unknown book’s life its cover is literally all it has to seduce you with. As authors we might not want to face up to that – but it’s a fact: the first steps of our literary career depend on a visual.

The publishers come under a hell of a lot of crit from purchasers for their marketing decisions – and sometimes for very good reason – but publishing houses aren’t one big person, they’re filled with individual teams of individual people working for individual books. A writer’s publishing team does an awful lot for them in terms of investment and sheer hard work, they often become very close to us personally and they are almost always 100% on our side and the side of our books. I don’t think a publishing team has ever once sat down at a table with an intention other then making sure the book sells; understanding that, it’s difficult and sometimes churlish for a writer to criticize the often complex decisions of the very people who are busting their arses for us, and whose careers are just as much on the line as ours if sales are bad. (Understand, I’m not talking about making weird decisions like electing to depict a black character as white, that’s just plain awful)

The Book Smugglers: This is probably going to be quite the controversial question but we can’t NOT mention it. As much as we love the Orbit covers, we have a few misgivings about them. The first cover, for The Poison Throne shows a giant, blonde warrior-like woman who we think is supposed to be your narrator: Wynter. However, Wynter is very petite and auburn-haired. Similarly, the cover for the second book, The Crowded Shadows shows a guy who we think is supposed to be Christopher. The third cover, for The Rebel Prince, certainly depicts Alberon. What happened to the fabulous, dark-skinned Arab, Razi, who is perhaps the main character of the trilogy?

Celine: Heh heh, my daughter hates the fact that Wyn has blonde hair on the Orbit cover, but I don’t mind because I know how many designs Orbit went through for the trilogy, and how much trouble Steve Stone and Peter Cotton (artist and graphic designer) went to in portraying the mood of the books while still keeping the sales team happy ( there really is a LOT of input from booksellers etc) As I said before, I think they did a fantastic job incorporating the elements that the sales guys wanted ( young, active, youthful figures, weapons, castles etc) while still keeping the covers fresh. If you would like to know just how much thought went into these covers, you can read more about them here.

I have to confess that I don’t think the girl on The Poison Throne cover looks like a ‘giant’ (there’s very little in the cover to put her height in context) Actually I think she’s a little small boned to be my Wyn (my Wyn is quite curvy.) But, sure, everyone will have their own idea of Wyn anyway and no picture will ever capture what is in our heads (which is why some covers try and avoid faces.) I suspect the cover artist found someone with the right kind of ‘vibe’ and went for it,( that cover girl does have a good ‘vibe’ going for her) I’m happy with that. Wyn is strong and determined, at the same time she’s young and a little overwhelmed – this is a good representation of that, I think.

Despite the full compliment of fingers, the lack of scarring and the rather supermodelish good looks, I’m pretty sure that is meant to be Christopher on the Crowded Shadows cover. Certainly he has Christopher’s long black hair and multitude of knives (it would have been awesome had he been wearing the Merron’s symbolic bracelets though!) Anyone who has read the book will recognize this very pivotal scene (though Christopher quite pointedly has no weapons at that point in the book, their inclusion in the imagery is very evocative of the mood of that particular moment.) I love this cover. It captures very much the atmosphere of this section of the trilogy. The choice of scene and character is very apt as Christopher and his people are vital to this story.

The author’s depiction of her characters

You’re right, for me Razi is the pivotal character in this trilogy. His actions and personality influence almost every other character and event in the three books. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t initially disappointed in his lack of an appearance on the covers. But I fully understand where Orbit are going with the Rebel Prince cover. They needed the single figure motif to follow through all three covers, and this book is all about the Rebel Prince: it’s the book where we finally get to meet Alberon, after all that waiting it really does have to be him on the cover.

Razi will be getting equal billing on the limited edition promotional artwork which Orbit has planned for later on – you can be sure of that.

The Book Smugglers: You are something of an artist yourself and are writing the Graphic Novel adaptations for your books. Can you tell us how the process for creating covers for these will unfold?

Celine: Well, the graphic novel won’t so much be an adaptation, it’s a story in its own right, so the covers will follow their own rules. There is a certain plot thread which is left semi-unresolved in the trilogy – or should I say it is resolved off screen. I did this for two reasons; 1/ because its resolution was something which demanded more attention then I felt would have been appropriate to the books and 2/ the postponement of personal gratification for the greater good is one of the strongest themes of these stories. Resolving this particular conflict off screen fit into that theme very nicely for me.

I would very much like to tell this particular story in graphic novel format. As such, I’d love to draw it myself. God knows if I’ll ever get the time, graphic novels being so labor intensive, but if I do get to draw them, the covers would portray all four main characters, preferably in a vital scene from the story.

The Book Smugglers: Here at the Book Smugglers, we think about covers a lot, and we believe they are incredibly important, as both a marketing tool and as the artistic representation of the book. We also firmly believe that a cover can be both commercially effective AND artistically, visually appealing. What do you think about covers? Do they matter to you?

Celine: I think it’s pretty obvious at this stage that they do matter to me. Though I would never buy a book based solely on the cover, when browsing a book shop I am drawn to beautiful or interesting art, and I must confess if the cover is bad I won’t pick up the book. Sad, but true. A good example of this is The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.

I saw the cover online and was drawn to it before I ever heard of the story – then I looked up reviews, thought it sounded interesting and bought it. It was the reviews that sealed the deal for me – but it was the cover that caught my attention in the first place. The cover is the first impression most people get of your book – if it’s dull or uninteresting or just plain ugly, it made be the only impression they ever get.

We would like to thank Celine Kiernan for chatting with us and for this incredible insight into the production of her covers.

And don’t forget, later today, we post the results of our Survey – the results are fascinating!

In light of the pretty dramatic, divided discussion we’ve recently had concerning fantasy covers and (so-called) cliches, we got to thinking and are frankly curious about online readers. We want to know what YOU think about genre fiction covers in general. Thus, we’ve put together a little survey. It’s completely anonymous (unless you WANT to leave your name and contact info, which is totally cool too) – but we really want to know how you fellow internet readers feel. If you’re interested and have some time to kill, we’d love to hear from you!

Please note that this survey is 100% subjective – we want YOUR own honest opinions. In our next “Cover Matters” post, we’ll share the survey results with you, hopefully shedding some light on how the internet readership views covers in general.

(If you have any problems with the embedded survey below, you can access the form online HERE)

Cover Matters is a new monthly feature in which we examine the medium that is first contact between a reader and a book: the cover. This feature will dedicate more separate space to a topic that has always intrigued, irked, and befuddled us. We will be talking about issues such as whitewashing practices, covers in poor taste, misleading or completely inaccurate covers, clichéd covers and, of course, covers that manage to get it right. We plan on having guests (bloggers, authors, cover artists, and publishers if possible) join us for these monthly pieces, with the following question in mind: Do covers matter?

In this second issue of our Cover Matters feature, we will be talking about Clichéd Covers in Fantasy. Inspired by Aidan Moher (a blogger whose take on Fantasy covers are infamous for their keen assessment and criticism) and his post “I ask you: Clichés – A Double Standard” over at A Dribble of Ink, we will be addressing some of the questions he asked (Why are clichés shunned in the text of novels, but often embraced on the cover? Should publishers look for the same originality in their art departments that they seek in their authors?), as well as examining examples of both clichéd and original covers. We will discuss the rationale behind creating clichéd covers, and the idea of consumer familiarity. And finally, later in the day, we will have a guest article from Aidan himself.

Introduction: The Problem of Clichéd Covers

Aidan Moher from A Dribble of Ink is a prolific Fantasy blogger that consistently posts about and critically examines cover art. In one of his recent articles (the one that inspired this issue of Cover Matters ), he examines the irony of covers in fantasy – as publishers and agents are constantly on the lookout for fresh and original novels, and yet once these groundbreaking new tales are published, they invariably end up with a ridiculously bland, clichéd cover.

He proceeds to ask the questions: Why are clichés shunned in the text of novels, but often embraced on the cover? Should publishers look for the same originality in their art departments that they seek in their authors?

The ensuing discussion included opinions from readers and authors alike (including Mark Charan Newton and Peter V. Brett) , and this all points to a diverse melange of opinions and reasonings: one must take into consideration budget, marketing, the fact that the cover has a specific purpose (i.e. that of selling the book).

In 2009, Orbit – one of the major Fantasy publishers in the UK – conducted a survey examining cover art for Fantasy novels published in 2008 by all the big publishers in the genre. As you can see, the results point to a staggering over-use of certain elements: see the prevalence of “swords” and “glowing magic.”

Or, in a more visual approach, behold – examples:

EXHIBIT 1: The Sword

EXHIBIT 2: The Hood (even though not part of the survey, the hood seems to be an up-and-coming favorite)

EXHIBIT 3: The Hooded Figure PLUS The Sword

The evidence does seem to point towards a certain sense of… homogeneity. What exactly does this trend mean?

Familiarity versus Originality: The Debate

To the causal consumer (the silent mass that, despite what we internet dwellers may think, comprises the majority of readers), covers are often the strongest, most influential selling point for a book. In this sense, the commercial aspect of covers must be taken into consideration by publishers, since covers are a reader’s first introduction to a book. While the back summary, author blurbs, reviews, and general popularity DO matter, the cover is the first impression a book makes with a potential consumer. As such, covers must DRAW a customer in; they must give detailed hints about the style, genre and subject matter of the book.

This is where “familiarity” comes into play – because the casual consumer is more likely to pick up a book based on the cover (as opposed to us angry internetz peepul that read reviews, spark up impassioned arguments with other internet-cave-dwellers, stalk authors, and hound publishers for review copies), the marketing strategy often is boiled down to the following:

This is not only backed by the examples shown above, but also by Mark Charan Newton, who, in the aftermath of Aidan’s post wrote an article of his own, entitled Book Cover Conversations are so Very Cliched.In this article, MCN voices his opinion not only as an author of Fantasy novels but also based on his past experience as bookseller and as an industry professional (editor). He agrees that covers are “the single most important decision in selling books,” and proceeds to give his writerly/publisher point of view – namely that artists, book marketers, authors need to eat and familiarity sells. Hence, Mr. Newton puts a whole lot more emphasis on the marketing and commercial aspect of the fantasy book cover. (His post also hosts interesting comments from readers, bloggers and authors and it is well worth a read.)

This argument makes two key assumptions. One is explicit:

But this argument also makes a much more interesting IMPLICIT assumption:

It is this second point that is far more interesting to us – because, as MCN implies in his post publishing/marketing professionals “won’t be able to eat” if the decision is made to put up covers that don’t feature a hooded figure, or a sword, or glowy magic, or whatever.

To us, this seems to be a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Clichéd covers are supposed to work because they engender a sense of familiarity with readers; because some prior cover was successful, this very similar new cover will also be successful. But isn’t it possible that the majority of these repetitive covers are successful because they comprise the majority of the market? What other choice does the buyer truly have?

We are not industry professionals. Nor can we back our opinion with sales numbers (since we don’t have the thousands of dollars required to access Nielsen data). BUT, we feel that there is tangible evidence that runs contrary to these two assumptions. First, we assert that:

People DO buy different covers!

Macmillan’s (one of the “Big Six” publishing houses in the US) “Top Sellers” at this precise moment for SF/F contain a number of titles with distinct, original covers:

Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson books with their gorgeous US covers designed by artist Dan dos Santos are immensely successful New York Times, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble Best Sellers (and yes, we’ve been trying to keep Urban Fantasy out of the discussion as that is fodder for an entirely different post, but we thought it was worth a mention)

At this moment in the top 50 SF/F Hardcover Bestsellers at B&N:

Granted, we don’t have the actual sales figures for any of these titles above. But provided that Macmillan, Amazon, B&N, et al are not pulling a fast one on us and lying about which titles are selling the best, there seems to be at least enough soft, third-party evidence that points to the contrary of this idea that originality is a death sentence for a fantasy title.

We’d also like to emphasize the main problem we have with this multitude of bland sea of homogeneity in terms of covers: these covers make the books inside indistinguishable from one another. They are nondescript and look like “just another Fantasy novel” without any zest or originality whatsoever. Doesn’t familiarity breed exhaustion?

Plus, no one seems to be asking the question that matters most to us:

At the end of the day, we understand that sales matter, and that artists and publicists and authors, etc have to eat. But this argument seems to forget that there are two sides to this relationship. Isn’t the reader’s money just as important as the publisher’s/author’s/artist’s? Doesn’t the publisher have an obligation to provide the reader with his money’s worth? Is it really ok for publishers to put out a slew of mediocre (ranging from bland to utterly hideous) cover art, so long as it sells? The reader also has to spent his hard-earned money and wouldn’t a better cover, a more artistic cover, or a cover that fits the book a little more closely be a better investment?

Other Problems with Cover Clichés

Another argument we’ve seen for homogeneous covers is the “Cost Defense.” There just isn’t really that much money available to publishers to put together lavish photoshoots or commission top artists to create something entirely original for every book. To this, we draw on a point Aidan has made before us – significantly smaller publishers such as Pyr and Night Shade Books, or imprints like Angry Robot are able to come up with drop-dead AWESOME covers for their titles – and we have to imagine that budgets for these smaller publishers are much lower than for the behemoths of the Fantasy landscape.

Is the true deciding factor that huge fantasy publishers (such as Tor/Forge, Bantam, Del Rey, and Ace) do not have the money to spend on their cover art? Or, rather, is their strategy “domination by inundation” – that is pumping out as many of the same looking books as possible?

We agree with the basic precept that a Fantasy cover should necessarily signify consumers that it is a Fantasy novel – but there are better ways of accomplishing that without being stale and repetitious. There are effective ways to integrate familiarity with originality – just take a look at Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings:

Nostalgic, but gorgeously rendered at the same time, The Way of Kings speaks to old and new fantasy readers alike.

Another question we find ourselves facing as we explore clichéd covers in fantasy and the arguments on both sides is the actual role that covers play in the complete package that is a published book. Covers are indeed a commercial entity, a marketing tool, intended to pique a customer’s interest – but it’s also a representation of the book, and, at its most basic level, a work of art. Art – meant to intrigue, to entertain, to provoke, to convey a message. A book itself is a tactile object and a work of art in itself. Books represent the dispersion of knowledge, the written enthrallment of storytelling – they are not just commodities meant to be sold.

Really Awesome Cover Art In Fantasy

There are a number of truly original, awesome covers out on the market today, and we’d like to share some of these with you, dear readers. N.K. Jemison’s breakout 2010 debut novel The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms has a gorgeous, unique cover, and the Australian covers for Celine Kiernan’s Moorehawk trilogy are another example of big titles with lovely covers that sell. J.G. Lamplighter’s Prospero Lost is another striking one worth a mention:

Then, there are the amazing French covers for Brent Weeks’ Night Angel Trilogy, and Fiona McIntosh’s Valisar trilogy (both courtesy of Dark Wolf’s Fantasy Reviews):

Then, there’s this amazing article from SciFiMeld, featuring artists and authors talking about covers that they think just work brilliantly.

CONCLUSION

We understand that covers are a marketing tool and serve a very important purpose as the commercial representation for a book. Yet, we think that clearly, covers can be both artistic and commercially potent – one does not preclude the other.

Make sure to stick around as later today, we give the floor to Aidan, from A Dribble of Ink. Since he’s the guy that got us talking about the problem of clichéd covers in fantasy novels, we decided to pose the question to Aidan: Do Covers Matter?

Covers Matter

So, Ana and Thea want me to talk about cliches in cover art. That’s great. It’s something I’ve talked about before, and have a particular interest in. I was all ready to go on about self-fulfilling prophecies and publishing companies relying on flash-in-the-pan marketing trends (like those listed my my wonderful hosts) and shitty but familiar art (I dare you to look me in the eye and tell me that the art on The Gathering Storm isn’t of objectively poor quality) over wonderfully creative and interesting covers… but then I ran into this quote by artist John Picacio on twitter:

And, well… that basically sums up my thoughts about the matter. Diehard fans of the genre (like those passionate enough to blog, or wile away the day reading blogs) see so many book covers that they’re always pining for something new and exciting. Book Publishers (and, just as importantly, Book Sellers in major bookstore chains) want something that is going to immediately present itself as familiar and comfortable to their customers. No matter how long a marketing department spends on a project, if it looks like it was slapped together to please everyone (like the US Hardback cover of Joe Abercrombie’s Best Served Cold), it’s going to fail as art; similarly, you could put the most amazing piece of art on a cover, but if it doesn’t resonate with the target audience, it fails as a marketing device. The key, however, lies in taking those familiar elements and teaming them up with an artist who has creative license.

My hope, for any cover, is that it can succeed both as a lovely piece of art, and a powerful tool to get the book into the hands of readers. It’s just that that tricky middle-ground can be very hard to hit.

Trends and familiarity need not be mutually exclusive with striking art. One need look no further than Pyr Books, who take familiar ideas (like Jon Sprunk’s Shadow’s Son) and pair them up with amazing artists. If more publishers took this approach, I like to think we’d see happier fans and a lot more pretty books on our bookshelves.

But, hey, what do I know? I’m just a blogger.

Thanks, Aidan!

Links for Further Reading:

The Book Cover Archive

The Book Design Review (Unfortunately, on indefinite hiatus – but still worth looking through the archives)

Lit Mob’s Weekly “Judging By The Cover” Feature provides analysis of covers, interviews with artists, and other opinion pieces

Book By Its Cover – an aesthetically appealing site that (though light on actual commentary) takes a look at children’s book art and comic book art

Total Cardboard’s Retro Book Cover Design Gallery, featuring beauties from classic SF/F/H and pulp novels

Judge A Book…By Its Cover – another awesome collection of covers of the SF/H/pulp variety

Cracked.com’s “Best (and Worst) Fantasy & Science Fiction Book Covers”

Another Archive of Book Covers from a site called “Covers”

It has recently been brought to our attention that another big Young Adult release may be pulling for a three-peat of Bloomsbury’s Liar and Magic Under Glass fiascos.

This time, the potentially whitewashed cover in question is the ARC of White Cat, the upcoming YA novel by Holly Black – and this time, the culprit is Margaret K. McElderry, a Simon and Schuster imprint.

An anonymous comment was left on our recent “Cover Matters: On Whitewashing” post. The commenter quotes directly from the ARC of White Cat that imply the protagonist, Cassel, is in fact a person of color, and that the cover is another instance of whitewashing.

Here are some of the quotes from the commenter about the book:

“Phillip’s dark skin makes his teeth look whiter when he smiles.” (ARC; pg 30).

(According to the commenter, “Many times throughout the book, we’re told that the Sharpe brother’s look a lot alike, so if Phillip has dark skin, it makes sense that Cassel does as well.”)

“I shake my head. ‘If they are, I don’t know where from. I bet mom for sure doesn’t either; although Gramps always says that his father–her grandfather– was a maharajah from India…” (ARC; page 43)

“‘Your grandfather told me that your family was descended from runaway slaves,’” she says. (ARC; page 43)

“People are always coming up to me on trains and talking to me in different languages, like it’s obvious I’ll understand them.” (ARC; page 43)

It is not a secret that we are against whitewashing. It is a racist, harmful practice. Before going off, denouncing the publisher and cover without all the facts, however, we decided to be cautious on this occasion for two reasons:

1) The quotes above seem to be indirect. They don’t describe the character that is depicted on the cover; they describe his relatives or how other people perceive him.

2) The book and cover are from Simon and Schuster, a publisher that has a good track record for publishing great, accurately depicted PoC covers.

We were outraged at the prospect of another whitewashed cover, but we also felt like we really needed to vet this ourselves. The above evidence seemed a little circumstantial and indirect – a person’s dark complexioned brother does not necessarily a PoC make (for that matter, teeth appearing whiter in contrast to skin could reflect anything from ethnicity to a good tan). So, we felt like we needed a bit more information – and luckily, we had an ARC for vetting purposes.

Here’s what we found:

The fourth quote above (about trains and different languages) isn’t in our ARC.

The second and third quotes are taken slightly out of context. Here’s the full quote from our ARC copy:

“Why did your parents call you Cassel?”

I’m defeated and amused. “Mom loved extravagant names. Dad insisted that his first son be named after him — Phillip — but after that, she got to name Barron and me whatever fanciful thing she wanted. If she’d had her way, Philip would have been Jasper.”

She rolls her eyes. “Come on. Are you sure they aren’t from her family? Traditional names?”

I shake my head. “If they are, I don’t know where from. I bet Mom doesn’t for sure either, although Gramps says that his father — her grandfather — was a maharaja of India. He sold tonics from Calcutta to the Midwest. Makes some sense that he could be Indian. His last name, Singer, could be derived from Singh.”

“Your grandfather told me that your family was descended from runaway slaves,” she says. [...] “Yeah,” I say. “I like the maharaja story better. And don’t even get me started on the one where we’re Iroquois.” (ARC 43)

We’re a little bit hesitant to say that Cassel is a PoC based on this excerpt. Although the bolded line above does speak to the angle that Cassel’s (or at least Cassel’s mother’s) appearance may imply some different (read: non-white) traditional background, it’s still all rather inconclusive (for example, the very caucasian Angelina Jolie, Megan Fox, and Farrah Fawcett all claim to be of Iroquois/Native American descent). There is no physical description of Cassel throughout the book, and there aren’t any explicit clues as to his appearance or heritage here. With only this as evidence, we weren’t exactly convinced that White Cat was another egregious example of whitewashed covers.

So, we sat down with the book, combing through the pages for a physical description, and for anything racially/culturally/ethnically explicit rather than implicit. After a few hours of reading, we finally found what we were looking for:

“My cousin just got back from India,” I say, and nod in Lila’s direction. “Her parents were living in some ashram. I was telling her about Wallingford.”

Audrey’s hands go to her hips. “She’s your cousin?”

Lila scrunches her eyebrows for a moment, then a wide grin splits her face. “Oh! Because I’m so pale, right?’

Stacey flinches. Audry looks at me like she’s trying to see if I’m offended. Wallingford’s idea of political correctness is never to mention anything about race. Ever. Tan skin and dark hair are supposed to be as invisible as red hair or blonde hair or skin so white it’s marbled with blue veins. (ARC 226)

This is the closest to explicitly stated evidence that Cassel is a PoC (even at that, we find it a very interesting choice on part of author Holly Black – Lila remarks about her “paleness” as opposed to any mention of Cassel’s appearance or his implied darker skin tone).

We want to stress that neither Cassel’s physical features nor his ethnic background are ever fully revealed in the book. It’s also worth noting that Cassel is the first-person narrator, and he doesn’t seem to know (nor does he ever explore) his own background. It’s almost as if the Wallingford’s PC non-mention of race is something Ms. Black put into practice in her novel, which is rather cool in itself. Perhaps this quote is indicative of Holly Black’s point with White Cat, and with her non-descriptions of Cassel. (This kind of reminds us of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, in which Gaiman doesn’t reveal that protagonist Shadow is actually a black man until the end of the book) Perhaps Ms. Black’s point is that race isn’t really a part of the story. Perhaps it is meant to be an affirmation of colorblindness.

But we digress.

On the matter of whitewashing, we don’t know what Cassel looks like or what his cultural or ethnic or racial background is. But there is no doubt in our minds that Cassel is at least of a darker complexion – but this could mean anything. He might be Indian, or Hispanic, or Middle Eastern, or Greek, or Nigerian, or Indonesian, etc. Though the other quotes are circumstantial and inconclusive at best, with this last explicit remark near the end of the book, we can conclude that Cassel is, at the very least, not pale-skinned in appearance.

Thus, the ARC cover of White Cat, with its pale, caucasian-looking model, is a misrepresentation of the protagonist. It is a form of whitewashing, and we definitely want to add our voices to those calling Simon & Schuster to change the cover.

Before getting up in arms about White Cat, we think that a few things should be said. First, in order to come to this conclusion about the whitewashed cover and Cassel’s appearance, it took us several hours of combing through the book with the dedicated, sole task of finding a physical description of the protagonist. We had to search long and hard for this information, only to find no explicit descriptions and yielding instead a bunch of implicit ones.

Thus, the case of White Cat isn’t exactly the same as those of Liar, Magic Under Glass, or The Mysterious Benedict Society. There was no explicit description of a black protagonist with kinky, cropped hair and no subsequent publisher decision to replace this clearly described PoC with a caucasian girl with long flowing tresses on the cover. And, considering that we spent hours looking specifically for these descriptions, we can at least see where things might have gone awry between editorial and cover art departments, and how the assumption of a caucasian protagonist in this particular book may have occurred. Considering, especially, Simon & Schuster’s excellent track record with diverse PoC book covers, we don’t think this was an intentional decision (as it clearly was in the case of Liar, MUG, & TMBS) – it certainly is nowhere near as harmful or openly racist as Bloomsbury’s decisions to use white models for clearly described PoC characters.

Thanks to a wonderful second-opinion consultation from esteemed (and wicked cool) author Sarah Rees Brennan – the only person we knew of that had read White Cat in its entirety – and some online research, we have learned that Holly Black HAS spoken out about her cover:

Cassel’s racial background is indeterminate, which makes him very hard to describe. His story is actually partially based on a fantastic true-crime book, Son of the Grifter, that I read while I was doing research for White Cat. In it, a man named Kent Walker described being brought up by his grifting mother. She often told him different stories about where his grandfather’s family came from – essentially robbing him of a clear sense of identity. In White Cat, Cassel doesn’t know his background–only the contradictory things people in his family have claimed. I’m glad the final cover shows him looking more tanned, in keeping with the way he actually looks in the book.

Also, we have learned that the ARC cover is NOT the final cover for White Cat. Holly Black has posted about this matter on her blog, in response to a concerned reader’s comment about whitewashing:

You are absolutely correct. The lighting at the shoot and the desaturation done to the photo made the model look very pale on the cover of the ARC. Cassel looks browner and more like himself on the final.

Here’s the comparison of the ARC (left) and final cover (right) (click to enlarge):

It might not be perfect, but it is (in our opinion) a marked improvement. This version of Cassel on the new cover is much closer to our mental image of him!

In response to our question about how author Sarah Rees Brennan felt about the cover, she told us the following:

I’ve read the book, and I thought it was very cool how Cassel’s family being conmen means he literally doesn’t know where he comes from – to reflect that the three models for the Sharpe brothers (the other two are on the back) are all from different racial backgrounds. But it does mean Cassel’s look was always going to be tricky to portray with a people cover, since he doesn’t actually know whether he’s a PoC or not.

And after reading the book for ourselves, we wholeheartedly agree with Sarah’s opinion.

So what about you? Any thoughts? We’d love to hear from you about this particular cover!

For more on White Cat by Holly Black, check out these links:

Holly Black’s LiveJournal in which she responds to a heartfelt, awesome comment

And we will leave you this evening by letting you all know that while we made it sound like writing this post and gathering facts was some arduous task – it actually wasn’t, because White Cat is a fantastic, awesome read! (Don’t worry, we’ll review it closer to the release date this May)…

Cover Matters is a new monthly feature in which we examine the medium that is first contact between a reader and a book: the cover. This feature will dedicate more separate space to a topic that has always intrigued, irked, and befuddled us. We will be talking about issues such as whitewashing practices, covers in poor taste, misleading or completely inaccurate covers, clichéd covers and, of course, covers that manage to get it right. We plan on having guests (bloggers, authors, cover artists, and publishers if possible) join us for these monthly pieces, with the following question in mind: Do covers matter?

In this first issue, we will be examining the practice of whitewashing of covers. We begin by taking a look at a few examples of Whitewashing over the ages, following up with an examination of the rationales justifying this practice. We proceed to talk about problems of whitewashing, as this form of discrimination has much broader implications in not only the publishing and book world, but in the real world as well. We finally conclude the post with a call for awareness and a guest article by the eloquent and passionate Ari from Reading in Color.

Introduction:

In books, to whitewash is to use a white representation for a character that is not white. If you have been anywhere near the wonderful world of book blog internetting for the past few months you are probably aware of two major cover fiascos, in which publishing house Bloomsbury used white models on covers to represent non-white protagonists. After the huge online outcry the covers of Liar by Justine Larbalestier and of Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore were retreated and replaced:

As much as we, and probably the rest of the world (as some of the comments we have seen point to), would like to think that these are only but sporadic, isolated incidents, unfortunately this is not so. The practice has been going on for a long, long time, and it is not confined to one genre or one race, nor is it solely an American issue, either:

Example 1: Octavia Butler’s Dawn

Dawn is the first book in Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis series and her protagonist Lilith Iyapo (the standing woman in the cover to your left), is described as “an imposing black woman” (quote from NK Jemisin’s article). The first cover published in 1987 was replaced with the cover on the right in the 1997 edition, 10 years later.

Example 2: Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea Quartet and Powers

Ursula Le Guin is a Fantasy author known for writing multiracial characters. Her Earthsea quartet for example features dark-skinned characters, however early books depict white-skinned ones on the covers.

Similarly, the arc of her 2007 release Powers, which features a POC as the main character, was distributed with the cover on the left. Thankfully, the publishers fixed the mistake in time for the release.

Example 3: LA Banks’ Crimson Moon Books

The Crimson Moon books features a protagonist who is half-creole, half African-American and the four covers in the series are completely all over the place in portraying said protagonist. The latest cover is the only one that comes close to Sasha’s honey, darker skin tone.

Example 4: Cherry Cheva’s She’s So Money

The protagonist of this 2008 book is Asian (Thai to be more precise).

Example 5: Esther Friesner’s Sphinx’s Princess

This 2009 novel and 2010 sequel, about Nefertiti, the Egyptian Queen has a very white, European looking model on its covers.

Example 6: The Dragon and The Stars Anthology

This anthology edited by Derwin Mak and Eric Choi, and featuring fantasy, myth, and science fiction stories by and about ethnic Chinese writers from around the world – including Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore, Canada and the United States….and it has a European Dragon on the cover. (Never mind the fact that the book isn’t even about dragons)

Example 7: German cover of NK Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

The protagonist of this fantastic novel is thus described:

I am short and flat and brown as forestwood, and my hair is a black-curled mess. Because I find it unmanageable otherwise, I wear it short. I am sometimes mistaken for a boy.

So who is the person depicted in the cover of the German version?

According to the author, the German editor has declared that the woman in the cover is not meant to depict anyone in the book. It is a random person. She has been advised:

by other pro authors that this sort of thing — art that’s got nothing to do with the book — is common among foreign publishers, who go in more for “symbolic” rather than “representative”/”realistic” like us USians prefer.

We remain baffled as to how a blonde, random woman in lieu of a dark-skinned woman could “symbolise” anything other than racism. This is a choice and a choice that brings us to the point of this post.

“Explaining” Whitewashing

The most dominant rationale we have seen for justifying whitewashing of covers (and movies, etc) is the simplistic argument:

We have a few problems with this argument. First, we should disclose that we do NOT have any hard data (although if anyone does have access to sales figures, we’d love to hear from you), and as such, we must deal with largely anecdotal and other secondary evidence.

That said, it seems to us that the argument that the statement, “PoC Covers Don’t Sell” seems more than a little disingenuous. First off, there aren’t very many books with PoC representation on the covers out in the market to begin with! Check out one informal survey done by a blogger cited at Racebending.com, in which a paltry 2% of 775 YA books looked at had PoC on the covers. This is a small sample, but from our experience, it feels pretty representative. Go into the YA or SF/F section of your book store and take a look at the covers. We’re betting about 2% of those covers depict a PoC (if that). In this sense, yes, PoC covers don’t sell…but that probably has something to do with the fact that there aren’t any significant number of them out there. And while we’re on the argument that covers with PoC on them do not sell, take a look at the July issue of Italian Vogue. The issue, in the midst of a huge slump in advertising and sales for fashion magazines, sold out completely in the USA and UK, causing a rush second printing of 40,000 copies. This hot-selling, record breaking issue was the “Black Issue” and only featured black models. For a relatively small circulation magazine, this is huge news. While we know that matching book publishing to magazine publishing is an apples to oranges comparison, we do think it’s an interesting trend to at least note.

Following and related to the argument that POC-cover books will not sell, the second major argument we have seen in the rationale for whitewashing covers is:

There’s a whole lot wrong with this argument. First, it assumes that the majority of “readers” are white. We live in a very diverse world – in the United States alone, over 38% of the population is a race other than white (according to the American Community Survey Demographic & Housing Estimates from 2006-2008, and separating “Hispanic/Latino” from the “white” classification). Demographics aside, this argument is also flawed as it assumes that readers can only relate to books about characters that are similar to themselves. What does that say about books with vampires or werewolves or blue aliens on the covers? Is the message, then, that readers can eagerly relate to these covers and these different species’ of characters – but cannot relate to something so removed as another human of a different race? What does this say of PoC audiences that read books with predominantly white protagonists? This argument implies that they either have more mental fortitude and adaptive prowess than their white brothers and sisters, or that their being able to relate to white characters simply isn’t as important than whites being able to relate to non-whites. Any way you cut it, it’s insulting to all those involved.

Besides the Young Adult category/genre, we’ve seen this argument of non-relatability applied especially in the romance field – in particular, with African-American Romance. Attempts at “Crossover Marketing” (Marketing African-American Romance in the Romance section as opposed to segregating it to the A-A Section) were met with this brand of criticism, for example from the Arlington Morning News (from aalbc.com):

In an Arlington Morning News story about crossover marketing of African-American romances, a magazine publisher indicated that the covers, which show Blacks in Afrocentric styles, might make white readers uncomfortable.

“There are many people who might see the covers of the books, which often feature women with braids or short kinky cuts and men with clean-shaven heads and dark skin, as being too black and in-your-face” She went on to suggest covers without people.

As we’ve said before, this is a problem that pervades the publishing industry, across genres. Again, the same assumption presupposes this reporter’s argument (a white person is not too white for PoC readers, but PoC characters are too “colored” and “in-your-face” for white readers). The point is, these sorts of assumptions about white and PoC readers are insulting to ALL involved – to both persons of color, and white readers alike.

Problems & Implications of Whitewashing

The problems inherent in whitewashing of covers extends much further than a mere book. The practice is indicative of a larger problem that is prevalent in the publishing world, and in our own world, as readers and humans. Even before a cover is placed on a book and may be whitewashed, there are numerous obstacles and problems that face PoC writers. You may have noticed that many books with PoC protagonists are written by white authors, especially in the YA arena. In fact, the whole impetus for our “Cover Matters” posts were two such books – both Liar and Magic Under Glass are books with PoC protagonists, and are written by white authors. According to statistics taken from the Children’s Cooperative Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, this trend is the norm:

We want to make it very clear that we think that it is TOTALLY awesome that white authors write about POC. We want diversity! We live in a diverse world, we want diverse characters that represent the real world! Justine Larbalestier has written a great article about why her protagonists aren’t white, that we encourage everyone to read.

However, the discrepancy between books written about PoC and by PoC is interesting, and also worthy of note. Take, for example, Mary Anne Mohanraj’s experience with “The Red Sari” phenomenon for her Bodies In Motion cover. Ms. Mohanraj explains:

My original cover was an ‘artsy, literary’ cover, but under market pressure, the cover was changed to an image of a brown-skinned woman with wet skin, wrapped in a red sari. I had heard that this was common for the covers of S. Asian books, so I eventually decided to do some research and see if that was actually the case.

Ms. Mohanraj put together a presentation of her findings for the 2008 SALA Conference in San Francisco, which you can read about online here: South Asian & Diaspora Book Covers.

For another perspective, we’d also like to call your attention to a post by POC author Neesha Meminger, “Who Gets to Represent”. Of her experiences, Ms. Meminger says:

When white authors write characters of colour, their careers are not hindered. In fact, they may get the traditional pat-on-the-back response whenever the privileged represent those they have privilege over. When authors of colour write books featuring white protagonists and all-white casts, their careers are not negatively impacted. I am not applauded or thanked when I write white characters in my books because I am expected to.

Certainly a valid point. She then goes on to say:

When authors of colour dare to feature protagonists of colour, or people their books primarily with characters of colour, our challenges to getting published are vast. If we do somehow manage to get published, our books are “educational,” or about race and “other”-ness — and we are almost never lead titles. Many of us struggle to get a second book published (Mitali Perkins waited over ten years to have her second book published), and to get the marketing and publicity support we need to reach our audience. (This last bit is probably true for the majority of authors, regardless of race or background, but it is definitely compounded for PoC).

So, What Can We Do?

Whitewashing of covers is a problem. It is a concrete, visual representation that can be held in our hands, of a much larger moral and social problem, namely: Racism. If you think that we are exaggerating, that covers don’t matter, that what matter are the stories inside a book, that this is the 21st century after all and we all have come a long way, perhaps you should consider the following:

- Most of the examples given above happened in the past 5 years, some of them are happening right now.

Whitewashing is not something that is relegated to the book industry either to wit:

- In 2008, L’Oréal was accused of Whitewashing Beyonce on their advertisement on an issue of Elle Magazine.

- The 2010 movie Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is based on a Nickelodeon’s cartoon and is “set in a fantastical Asian world,” depicting a multicultural world and multicultural characters. However, the casting of the movie is largely Caucasian – for the heroes, that is. The villains, however, are represented by PoC.

- Last Friday it hit the news that Gerard Depardieu will be playing the role of Alexandre Dumas in a new movie about the writer who was of mixed race and suffered racism when he was alive. Gerard Depardieu had to “darken his skin and wear a curly wig” to play the role.

And the list goes on.

So, the question we need to ask ourselves is this: what can we do about all of this mess? There is no easy solution for this of course – you can’t make a racist, not racist. You can’t make people who think they won’t relate to a PoC in a cover of book or a magazine, or in the lead role of a movie change their minds.

Where to start?

Awareness is important. Be aware of cover issues, for example, and don’t deny that there is a problem (i.e. “marketing departments are so busy, maybe this is not a racist issue at all”). Be aware that there is such a thing as White Privilege, and what exactly it means (check out this article from The Story Siren on her experience with White Privilege). There will a whole bunch of links at the end of this article as well, and we highly recommend you read them.

If you want to actively do something, you can start by reading more books by PoC, about PoC and with PoC on the covers – and the numbers will start to change. Check out the PoC Reading Challenge or join the Readers Against Whitewashing Facebook Page.

Publishers: if you are publishing a book about a PoC, OWN IT. Like for example, Simon and Schuster and Angry Robot are two publishers that are publishing great books about and by PoC with great covers too.

The truth is this: if we just sit back and let it pass, we will still be seeing whitewashing in the 22nd century and beyond.

And this is what we have to say on the subject; we admit we got carried away. The more we read, the more interested we became, and the post ended being more of an essay than anything else. We have learnt a lot in the process, we might even have shed a tear or two reading articles and watching videos at Racebending ( a site we highly recommend you all to check it out, it is eye-opening).

To finalise, we would like to give the floor to Ari, from Reading in Color. She is the teenager who wrote that amazing letter to Bloomsbury when the Magic Under Glass cover debacle occurred, and her words have inspired several articles and blogs about the subject. We asked Ari: Do Covers Matter?

Covers Matter

A huge thank you to Ana and Thea for inviting me to express my opinions here at The Book Smugglers. Like most bloggers I love to talk, rant, discuss and listen so I’m excited for this new feature they will be having called Cover Matters because it’s an important topic and one that we need to talk about.

I think YA book covers (I mostly read YA so I can’t compare my thoughts on this subject to adult fiction book covers) have lots of problems (skinny models vs. overweigh models, boys vs. girls, headless people, etc.) However, in this post I want to focus solely on whitewashed covers because they are the most distressing of all covers.

If you follow the book blogging world, especially the YA blogosphere then you have undoubtedly heard all about the Liar and Magic Under Glass cover controversy. A brief refresher: Bloomsbury USA whitewashed both covers of these books. That means that, although the books were about African American (in Liar the main character, Micah is biracial) or “dark-skinned” (the main character, Nimira in Magic Under Glass is described as such) girls, the covers had white models on them. This is wrong, pure and simple. The whitewashing of covers has been an eye opener to many in the blogging community.

The message a whitewashed cover sends is that POC are worthless, that we mean so little that even if a book is written about us, we can’t be on the cover because the image of a POC won’t sell. Even if a book is about a certain topic, the cover can be completely different from the story as long as it sells. Now I want everyone to step back and think about this. Are you back? Is that not completely ridiculous? For all the “color blind “folks, let’s take color out of the equation. It would be like having a vampire on the cover of a book about a witch or a dog on the cover of a book about a horse, etc (except it’s 100x worse to whitewash a cover). Wouldn’t you be mad or at the very least puzzled? POC can read about white people, that’s “normal” and expected. But ask some white people to read about a POC and it’s a problem, “there aren’t many books about POC in my favorite genre” or “I don’t see color so I shouldn’t have to alter my reading habits.” I admit that I always thought it obvious as to why whitewashed covers are wrong, but I received a rude awakening when I started reading comments on other blogs that said things like “so?” or “I don’t really care because I don’t see color. I just read the story if it sounds good.” This is troubling for a few reasons.

First, the idea of “not seeing color” is ridiculous and sad. It’s sad because we live in a colorful world, with people who are all different shades. If you don’t “see color” then to me, you are saying I don’t recognize the beauty of all people who are of different hues. People come in all different colors and we should see this beauty and appreciate, not ignore it. If you’re white, you are colorless to a certain degree but that’s not bad! I certainly don’t think white people should feel bad for being white or pale (ugh don’t get me started on tanning! Tanning beds are one of the creepiest things in this world), everyone should be accepting of their own skin color as well as others.

I understand the intention behind “not seeing color”. This mindset states that you only judge a book based on the story within the pages, not on the cover. The idea being that you will read any book that appeals to you and that therefore you are not narrow-minded because you would read a book about a person of color (POC) it just hasn’t been written yet. As if, once a book is written in your favorite genre and it’s about a POC, it will magically appear in your local bookstore or library and you will pick it up. Naturally, this is completely ridiculous. I’m willing to bet that those who claim to be color blind own books with mostly white faces on the cover. This may not be intentional on their part, but since they don’t see color, they limit themselves from searching for books that have color in them and they don’t protest the lack of color and cultural diversity in books.

There are not many YA books out there about people of color so you have to make a conscious effort to look for them. When I was a young reader, I just read the most popular books, the ones everyone was reading (Beverly Cleary, Harry Potter, etc.) but I realized something really fast: the popular books rarely involved people who looked like me, or who came from different cultural backgrounds than the white norm. It wasn’t fair. I wanted to see more books about POC, but when I wandered the shelves of my local bookstores, I didn’t see very many, maybe one or two. This bothered me for a while, but I didn’t decide to do anything till I was older, getting ready to start high school. I started to do research. I looked up titles and authors who were/wrote about POC and armed with this knowledge, I headed back into bookstores. If the books weren’t there, I asked for them to be ordered. Oftentimes these books were in obscure locations that I wouldn’t have thought to look, more often than not though, my bookstore just didn’t carry them but they were always happy to order them for me. If I was color blind, I never would have done this. I would have kept reading the books that I saw prominently on display in my bookstores and libraries, books that did not have POC on them and/or were not about POC.

POC do not get on covers. I suppose this is because somewhere publishing companies have statistics (or have at least noticed trends) that show that people are more likely to read about white people than POC and that covers with white people sell better than covers with POC. This places the blame of the lack of POC on covers solely on the consumers. If we start buying more books with POC on the covers, publishing companies will put more of them on the cover and publish more books about POC. Also, why do some white people not want to read about POC? It’s important for families and teachers to talk about the importance of having tolerance for other cultures. Tolerance is developed from reading about cultures different from your own. BUT if we consumers don’t see many books with POC on the cover, we will continue to buy books with white people on the cover (and if we don’t see color, we won’t give this a second thought) and a whole generation of leaders will have grown up without reading about and respecting other cultures and then it’s the publishing companies fault. It’s a vicious cycle and instead of pointing fingers and blaming the publishing companies or the readers, let’s talk about how we can change the minds of both publishing companies AND readers. We can do this by buying books with POC on the cover and books that are about/by POC. This will send a message to publishing companies, that we don’t care who is on the cover, as long as the story is good, therefore, publish more books about people of color. If your book blog is dedicated to a certain genre, then start making an effort to read and review books in that genre that feature POC. We can send messages to our fellow readers by talking up the books about/by people of color, if you have a blog, you have a computer, so there are no excuses for not being able to find books about POC (Google anyone?) Reviewing books about POX does not mean we praise every single book about/by a POC. There is no free pass just for writing about a diverse group of characters (especially if they aren’t authentic), we should hold all books to the same standards; are they well written? Entertaining? Meaningful? It’s just an added bonus when the cast is multicultural.

Covers matter because they are the first thing (or one of the first things) that attracts us to a book. When you see a cover that is so unique, so breathtaking, laugh out loud funny or just plain weird, that gets your attention and draws you to the book. As a POC, seeing a cover with a POC on it, draws me in. I will pick up ANY book with a POC on it (and then read the summary to see if I actually want to read it) because sometimes I get tired of reading about blondes, brunettes,and feisty redheads (*eye roll* Why can’t you be a feisty blonde? or black-haired girl?) with blue, green or hazel eyes. People of color deserve to see images of themselves reflected on book covers, especially young readers. As children and teens of color grow we need to see ourselves reflected on book covers and in books to re-affirm that we are special and valuable because we don’t always get that reassurance from TV/movies, magazines or those around us which provides a crushing blow to self-esteem. I am one of many young people of color who at one point or antoher wanted to be white and cursed the fact that not only do I look different from everyone else, but I rarely see images of people who look like me in the media. That is a sad reality and conclusion to come to and I sincerely hope that in a small way, my blog along with others will help promote the works of POC enough that the next generation (regardless of skin color) will grow up with POC on book covers and will pick up the book without giving it a second thought except being excited about the story on the pages. When young readers (including myself) see POC on book covers, we get a boost of self-esteem and feel triumphant, happy in the knowledge that people will be walking around with a POC on a book cover (for a little while at least). They are seeing in color and will come to realize (if they haven’t already), that we all have some common experiences and trials regardless of skin color. It’s an eye-catching cover indeed that can convey all that with just one image of a POC.

People have already stepped up and begun working to promote books by/about POC. Check out Color Online, theHappyNappyBookseller, Crazy Quilts, Multiculturalism Rocks!, Gal Novelty, Asia on the Heart,World on the Mind, Bookish Blather, Good Books & Good Wine and the POC Reading Challenge. Oh and if you stop by my blog that would be pretty cool too and maybe, just maybe, it would be a great resource

Thank you, Ari!

Referenced Articles/Links for Further Reading:

N.K. Jemisin’s take on her German Cover

Justine Larbalestier’s article on the creation of book covers

Racebending.com’s take on whitewashing in YA novels

The Guardian UK’s article, “Fashion world stunned by Vogue for black” by Sarah Mower

American Community Survey Demographic & Housing Estimates (2006-2008)

aalbc.com’s article on African American Romance: “It’s All About Love: Romance Readers Speak Out” by Gwendolyn E. Osborne

Children’s Books by and about People of Color Published in the United States; Statistics Gathered by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Justine Larbalestier’s article on why her protagonists aren’t white

An Analysis of South Asian & Diaspora Book Covers by Mary Anne Mohanraj

Neesha Meminger’s article on writing and publishing as a POC author, “Who Gets to Represent”

The Happy Nappy Booksellet thank you to Simon and Schuster’s POC covers

A Centralised article about Avatar: The Last Airbender from Racebending

Ursula LeGuin’s article on Slate.com about Whitewashing Earthsea

BBC News’ article about Alexander Dumas biopic and ensuing outcry

Following Bloomsbury’s Whitewashing Cover Fiasco ‘09-’10 (Justine Larbalestier’s Liar and Jaclyn Dolamore’s Magic Under Glass), readers were able to make some small positive change resulting in the publisher’s book jacket retraction and subsequent re-issuance of new, race-conscious covers.

This is great news. Awesome news, in fact. And, as a community of vocal, impassioned readers, we should be proud. But, if the controversy surrounding Magic Under Glass has shown us anything, it is that COVERS MATTER. The whitewashing of Liar and Magic Under Glass are not isolated incidents – this is a problem that has pervaded the industry for a very long time, and continues today.

Thus, we have decided to start a monthly feature called “Cover Matters.” The motivation for this feature is not because we think we are influential or on some sort of blogger power trip. Rather, we simply care about covers and books. A cover is a book’s first impression; it’s the equivalent of eye-contact and a smile from across the room. Covers can be an important factor in noticing and deciding to purchase a book. Beyond the first impression, we reflect on covers whilst reading and after finishing a book too.

We want this feature to dedicate more separate space to a topic that has always intrigued, irked, and befuddled us. In these posts, we plan to touch on not only racist cover practices (as with Liar and Magic Under Glass), but other cover issues too (covers in poor taste, misleading or completely inaccurate covers, and, of course, covers that manage to get it right). We are writing these pieces because we do care about cover issues – whether they be about whitewashing, slenderizing, homogenizing, etc. Cover Matters does not have any agenda beyond creating a space for an ongoing discussion of book covers.

We plan on getting guests (bloggers, authors, publishers or even cover artists if possible) to join us for these monthly pieces, with the following question in mind: Do covers matter?

In closing, we’ve got a few cover-related issues around the web that we’d like to bring up.

Firstly, we’d like to draw attention to a post over at Bookshelves of Doom that takes a look at The Mysterious Benedict Society books. It seems that while the illustrations within the book are accurate and depict a character named Sticky as “a skinny boy with light brown skin, anxious eyes (though perhaps the anxiety came from not yet having recovered his breath), and a completely bald head,”

the covers of the books show a skinny, bald, white character instead:

These books have been around since 2007 and are published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. You can contact Little, Brown here:

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publicity Department
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
publicity@lbchildrens.com

We encourage everyone to write to Little, Brown and share your feelings concerning these covers.

What else can you do, if you’re interested in these cover practices, beyond writing letters and blog posts? Well, you can also send a message via sales – and sign up for the Persons of Color Reading Challenge.

All you have to do is commit to reviewing as few as 1 and as many as 25 (or heck, more if you feel like it!) books from a POC author or featuring POC characters. You can find book and author suggestions HERE, and link your reviews to the challenge HERE. We are definitely on board and will make a conscious effort to review qualifying books this year.

Thirdly, as a direct result of the Magic Under Glass situation, a facebook fan group has been created, called Readers Against WhiteWashing with the following mission:

Whitewashing

* Fails to accurately represent race and diversity
* Says people of color do not matter
* Denies readers positive and diverse representation

RAWW is committed to public criticism of publishers who misrepresent characters.

We again encourage everyone to sign up and check it out.

Finally, we’d like to close our inaugural Cover Matters post we have a question for you, dear readers and please feel free to speak your mind:

Do covers matter to you? If so, how much? If not, why?